unhomogenized zen, babbling

Winter Moods February 4

It’s turned colder over the past several days following a late January warm spell. The creek still trickles, but less each day. The Great Horned Owl still calls before sunrise. As I sit in the barn zendo bundled with double blankets and thick ski gloves against the 10 degree cold, there are these two sounds. Then the owl at some point quiets. Then the only accompaniment to the breath in this belly is the creek and the closeness of the cold. Then there is only this belly pushing up and out and then falling, sometimes as smoothly as water sliding over clear ice and sometimes falling in small fits and starts like a leaf carried downstream, occasionally caught in eddies or bumping into rocks. This breath also will quiet for good some day. The belly will rise no more. The cycle interrupted. Who can say when? You might as well try to predict that magical moment when moving water turns to still ice. For now the breath is the center and all else in the world exists only when given attention, like satellites attracted or inhaled, then let go or exhaled by the inconstant gravity of the mind.